This is a repost. I am not the original author (see disclaimer at the bottom).
Content warning: discussion of sexual assault for procreation purposes in the Sims 4
Friendly Introduction
Ah, The Sims, the virtual dollhouse game franchise that has no competitors and keeps churning out content and drama with no end in sight. The game where for over two decades people have been murdering their Sims by drowning or starving them. You know the one.
The Sims 4 drama often revolves around the release of new packs with broken or unsatisfying features like the Wedding Pack that failed to deliver on its promise to have guests sit down and watch the wedding. Additionally, thereâs a huge modding scene creating anything from script mods to cosmetic items that isnât exactly drama-free. The pro-paywall and anti-paywall wars have been going strong for almost as long as the game has existed.
This story is nowhere on that scale. This drama is about a minor change to a gameplay trait so universally despised and thoughtless, EA walked it back immediately. This is the story about the few short weeks when rape was part of the Simsâ official gameplay.
I realize Sims exist only for the entertainment of the player/God. Consent doesnât exist in the Sims world. In the real world, however, it is both very real and very important. Itâs not surprising that players would apply this concept to a life simulation. Iâll be talking about Sims consenting to mean performing actions in an impaired state that they, due to their in-game traits, would not agree to if in any other emotional state. In doing so, I donât mean to at any point trivialize or make light of sexual assault in real life and if Iâm insensitive or tone-deaf, please let me know.
To explain why I even had to write that disclaimer, I need to explain two game mechanics that influence a Simâs behavior before moving on to the controversy.
Get To Know
Simsâ personalities comprise three traits. These are supposed to give your Sims distinct personalities but due to poor tuning and the Emotion System most Sims still feel pretty samey. The traits have always been criticized because they were more fleshed out in previous games. Over the years, EA has made attempts to improve some of these traits to varying levels of success.
In terms of traits, the Hates Children trait is pretty self-explanatory. These Sims hate children and get Tense or Angry in their presence. They get Bored reading childrenâs books, get Tense when pregnant, and are Happy when they take a negative pregnancy test.
Thatâs the idea at least. In reality, the negative moodlets arenât very strong and Sims who Hate Children interact with children autonomously and get positive moodlets from doing so like Sims without the trait do. The hate also doesnât extend to babies or toddlers, really nerfing what could be a fun trait for those looking to bring some dysfunction into their family gameplay. I think we all agree that a Sim who Hates Children shouldnât always be cooing over the damned baby, yet thatâs where youâd often find them.
Try to Calm Down
Simsâ lives are often ruled far more by their Emotions than their traits. The only time Sims arenât feeling things is when theyâre asleep. They can be Fine, Happy, Flirty, Confident, Energized, Inspired, Playful (and Hysterical), Angry (and Enraged), Bored. Tense, Sad, Embarrassed (and Mortified), Scared, or Dazed. Some whims (wishes the player can fulfill for reward points) and interactions only appear when a Sim is feeling a certain emotion. Flirting while Angry or Sad is bound to go wrong and being Flirty in the wrong company can get awkward fast. Some emotions can also be deadly. We donât have time to talk about all the Sims Iâve lost because they laughed themselves to death.
Try for Baby
In late March 2021, as part of a large Spring update that introduced bunk beds, EA decided to overhaul some of the traits. Initially, they didnât list what had been changed but it was obvious in the game. Suddenly, Clumsy Sims couldnât go anywhere without tripping. Bookworms read books. Cheerful Sims were extra cheerful.
And Sims who Hate Children?
Most of the changes were positive. They would now get Tense, then Angry when around kids âand also move away when they get to the Angry stage,â which sounds about right.
Another bullet point stood out though. Let me quote the changelog (since deleted):
âAsking a Hates Children Sim to âTry for Babyâ has no chance of success unless the Sim is Dazed.â
You know, Dazed, that emotion Sims get when theyâre sick, do a keg stand, get beat up, take medicine while not sick, are hypnotized, poisoned, electrocuted, or eaten by a Cowplant. (A popular mod that introduces alcohol and a variety of drugs into the game also makes copious use of it.) âDazedâ inhibits skill gain, gives Sims a slower, bedraggled walking style, and sometimes they see stars. The only Whims a Dazed Sim will have are âGo to Sleep,â âSleep it Off,â and âTake a Napâ (and theyâre all the same interaction). In addition to that, they are far more susceptible to death by electrocution.
And thatâs the state a Hates Children Sim needs to be in to agree to Try for Baby.
(The WooHoo interaction, the Simsâ equivalent to sex with perfect birth control, remains unaltered.)
So, to have a Sim who Hates Children Try for Babyâan interaction that doesnât happen autonomouslyâyou have to get them Dazed, the equivalent of tricking someone into having sex without protection against their will. And you, the player, are the one doing it.
You tell me if that sounds off somehow, because to me, it sounds a lot like rape, specifically stealthing, as a gameplay feature.
For comparison as part of the same trait overhaul, asking Non-Committal Sims, also not very likely to want children, to Try for Baby had âa very low chance of success,â which adds some gameplay challenge and realism without any consent violations.
Lecture about Responsibilities
The outrage was quick, strong, and universal. Sims players, who at least online skew young and progressive, were Tense and Angry.
Some had noticed that there was something off with Trying for Baby with Sims who Hate Children for several weeks before EAâs patch notes but didnât figure out that you could work around someoneâs family planning choices by getting them Dazed.
When the patch notes came out and they put together what had happened, it was not well-received.
Some were angry it took away from their gameplay options. The popular 100 Baby Challenge was much harder to play if you couldnât Try for Baby with anyone. Seducing a Sim while multiple children scream around you is hard enough without having to find out your partnerâs traits and adjust according to that (by either not Trying for Baby with them or getting them Dazed.).
However, the loudest and most enduring complaints were not about gameplay limitations but sexual consent. This bug report for the new feature summarizes it nicely:
I realize that this is intended behavior, and not a bug. However, this aspect of the Hates Children trait seems to echo serious real-life issues a bit too closely. While Iâm certain this was not the intention, it feels as though The Sims 4 has added elements of date [rape] by allowing a Sim to convince a Sim who does not want kids to try for a baby if the Sim is intoxicated (in the Dazed mood). I just donât feel like complicated issues of consent while intoxicated belong in The Sims 4.
It just didnât feel right that this was now a feature when iconic elements from previous games, like burglars and the Sexy Dancer (later Party Dancer) bursting out of a cake, had been excluded from the Sims 4 for being inappropriate for a childrenâs game. But explicit sexual assault somehow didnât cross that line in the Sims developersâ eyes?
This also reawakened discourse about alien abductionsâa staple of the franchise present in every gameâfrom which male Sims usually return pregnant. Wasnât this sexual assault too?
One notable difference between the two features is that alien abductions and the resulting pregnancy are not player-directed or explicitly non-consensual. The player canât trigger an abduction but can imagine what happened during the abduction off-screen where they canât as easily handwave dazing a Sim so the Sim will agree to a pregnancy.
Whatever your view on alien abductions in the Sims, I feel Confident in saying that almost no Sims players have real-life traumatic experiences with aliens that might be triggered by the game. The same can unfortunately not be said for sexual assault. Sure, you can simply adjust your gameplay to not have children with Sims who Hate Children but knowing that the presence of the option to violate their consent is upsetting even if you donât personally make use of it. (And since itâs a gameplay mechanic, Iâm also not judging anyone who used it.)
Nobody seems to have thought EA had malicious intentions. Itâs the thoughtlessness they took issue with. How had this made it into the game despite its obvious implications?
Smooth Recovery
We would never find out how this happened (and really, why would we?) but the Sims team responded to the viral tweet I linked in the header within a day:
âYou are absolutely right! We appreciate you all holding us accountable to our values â especially when we miss the mark! Consent isnât something to play with, so weâve updated our language & will correct the trait in an upcoming patch.â
The patch notes were quickly altered to read, âSims with the âHates Childrenâ trait will be very unreceptive to any âTry For Babyâ actionsâ with no exception when theyâre dazed.â
This satisfied Sims players, and the next patch a few weeks later eliminated the feature. Now itâs harder to Try for Baby with a Sim who Hates Children but when it happens, players can in good conscience say that no Sims were traumatized or harmed in the process.
In terms of controversy, it was a minor blip in Sims discourse, far overshadowed by the ongoing anger about the introduction of kits, small $5 DLC that include cosmetic items. A whopping 19 of them have since been released and they remain controversial.
Additionally, around the same time several huge Sims custom content creators on Patreon were revealed to be putting trackers on their files and âactively shar[ing] information on patrons, mass-blocking them, and coordinating attacks against them,â so itâs surprising the Hates Children controversy gained any attention at all.
But that doesnât make it any less Embarrassing, nay Mortifying, that this happened because none of the developers realized that this was not a great idea in any game, let alone one rated 12+.
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Thank you for reading. This has been sitting in my drafts unfinished for months but the Sims 4 is adding Infants, a new life stage, to the game next week. I canât wait to terrorize a Sim who Hates Children with some new offspring. That sounds fun in a way getting a Sim Dazed to baby-trap them does absolutely not.
Disclaimer
This is a repost from reddit. I really missed this sub so I decided to post some top articles from time to time until hopefully one day this community will be large enough to produce its own content.
Read the original here
I somehow missed this one! I remember there being a ton of drama surrounding the wedding pack back when it came out, but it was more surrounding the bugs and some features not being fulfilled, fulfilled poorly, or the overall angst that surrounds basic game content that probably ought to just be included in the game you boughtinstead getting segmented off into multiple pricey packs or expansions for additional purchases.
This one is downright nutty. I really canât even imagine what they were thinking.